The truth about managing people, third edition

In the Third Edition of the bestselling book, The Truth About Managing People, bestselling author Stephen Robbins shares even more proven principles for handling virtually every management challenge. Robbins delivers 61 real solutions for the make-or-break problems faced by every manager. Readers will learn how to overcome the true obstacles to teamwork; why too much communication can be as dangerous as too little; how to improve your hiring and employee evaluations; how to heal "layoff survivor sickness"; how to manage a diverse culture; and ways to lead effectively in a digital world. New truths include: how to nurture friendly employees, forget about age stereotypes, first impressions count, be a good citizen, techniques for managing a diverse age group, and ethical leadership among others.

Part I The Truth About Hiring

Truth 1 First Impressions DO Count!

Truth 2 Forget Traits; It’s Behavior That Counts

Truth 3 Brains Matter; or Why You Should Hire Smart PeopleTruth 4 When in Doubt, Hire Conscientious People!

Truth 5 Want Friendly Employees? It’s in the Genes!

Truth 6 Realistic Job Previews: What You See Is What You GetTruth 7 Throw Out Your Age Stereotypes

Truth 8 Match Personalities and Jobs

Truth 9 Hire People Who Fit Your Culture: My “Good Employee” Is Your Stinker!Truth 10 Good Citizenship Counts!

Truth 11 Manage the Socialization of New Employees

Part II The Truth About Motivation

Truth 12 Why Many Workers Aren’t Motivated at Work Today

Truth 13 Telling Employees to “Do Your Best” Isn’t Likely to Achieve Their BestTruth 14 Not Everyone Wants to Participate in Setting Goals

Truth 15 Professional Workers Go for the Flow

Truth 16 When Giving Feedback: Criticize Behaviors, Not PeopleTruth 17 Managing Across the Generation Gap

Truth 18 You Get What You RewardTruth 19 It’s All Relative!

Truth 20 Recognition Motivates (and It Costs Very Little!)

Truth 21 There’s More to High Employee Performance Than Just Motivation

Part III The Truth About Leadership

Truth 22 Five Leadership Myths DebunkedTruth 23 The Essence of Leadership Is TrustTruth 24 Experience Counts! Wrong!

Truth 25 Effective Leaders Know How to Frame IssuesTruth 26 You Get What You Expect

Truth 27 Charisma Can Be Learned

Truth 28 Charisma Is Not Always an AssetTruth 29 Make Others Dependent on You

Truth 30 Successful Leaders Are Politically AdeptTruth 31 Ethical Leadership

Truth 32 Virtual Leadership: Leading from Afar

Truth 33 Adjust Your Leadership Style for Cultural Differences, or When in Rome

Part IV The Truth About Communication

Truth 34 Hearing Isn’t ListeningTruth 35 Listen to the Grapevine

Truth 36 Men and Women Communicate DifferentlyTruth 37 What You Do Overpowers What You SayTruth 38 The Value of Silence

Truth 39 Watch Out for Digital Distractions

Part V The Truth About Building Teams

Truth 40 What We Know That Makes Teams WorkTruth 41 2 + 2 Doesn’t Necessarily Equal 4

Truth 42 The Value of Diversity on TeamsTruth 43 We’re Not All Equal: Status Matters!Truth 44 Not Everyone Is Team Material

Part VI The Truth About Managing Conflicts

Truth 45 The Case FOR ConflictTruth 46 Beware of Groupthink

Truth 47 How to Reduce Work–Life Conflicts

Truth 48 Negotiating Isn’t About Winning and Losing

Part VII The Truth About Designing Jobs

Truth 49 Not Everyone Wants a Challenging Job

Truth 50 Four Job-Design Actions That Will Make Employees More Productive

Part VIII The Truth About Performance Evaluation

Truth 51 Annual Reviews: The Best Surprise Is No Surprise!Truth 52 Don’t Blame Me! The Role of Self-Serving BiasTruth 53 Judging Others: Tips for Making Better Decisions

Truth 54 The Case for 360-Degree Feedback Appraisals: More IS Better!

Part IX The Truth About Coping with Change

Truth 55 Most People Resist Any Change That Doesn’t Jingle in Their Pockets!Truth 56 Use Participation to Reduce Resistance to Change

Truth 57 Employee Turnover Can Be a Good ThingTruth 58 In Cutbacks: Don’t Neglect the Survivors

Truth 59 Beware of the Quick FixReferences

Managers are bombarded with advice from consultants, professors, business journalists, andassorted management “gurus” on how to manage their employees A lot of this advice is wellresearched and valuable Much of it, however, is a gross generalization, ambiguous, inconsistent,or superficial Some of it is even just downright wrong Regardless of the quality, there doesn’tseem to be any slowdown in the outpouring of this advice Quite the contrary Books on businessand management have replaced sex, self-help, and weight loss as topics on many nonfiction best-sellers’ lists Sadly, most of these books are not evidence-based Most, in fact, seem to beoblivious to the wealth of research on managing people at work and rely on personal opinions,limited experience, or unsupported observations If you want evidence of this, look at some of

the titles in the “Leadership” section of your local bookstore You’ll find titles like The

Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun; Make It So: Leadership Lessons from Star Trek; TheLeadership Secrets of Santa Claus; and Toy Box Leadership: Leadership Lessons from the ToysYou Loved as a Child.

I’ve been teaching and writing about managing people at work for more than 40 years Aspart of my writing efforts, I have read upwards of 30,000 research studies on human behavior.While my practitioner friends are often quick to criticize research and theory-testing, thisresearch has provided us with innumerable insights into human behavior Unfortunately, therehas been no short, concise summary of behavioral research that cuts through the jargon to givemanagers the truth about what works and doesn’t work when it comes to managing people atwork Well, that’s no longer true since the first edition of this book.

As with the previous editions, I’ve organized this book around key, human-behavior-relatedproblem areas that managers face: hiring, motivation, leadership, communication, team building,performance evaluation, and coping with change Within each problem area, I’ve identified aselect set of topics that are relevant to managers and where there is substantial research evidenceto draw upon I’ve also included suggestions to help readers apply this information to improvetheir managerial effectiveness Sixteen topics are new to this edition, and the others have beenupdated New to this edition are contemporary topics such as ethical leadership, virtualleadership, the dark side of charisma, organizational citizenship behavior, age stereotypes,organizational politics, digital distractions at work, the motivational power of recognition, andmanaging layoff-survivor sickness.

Who is this book written for? Practicing managers and those aspiring to a managementposition—from CEOs to supervisor wannabes I wrote it because I believe you shouldn’t have toread through detailed textbooks in human resources or organizational behavior to learn the truthabout managing people at work Nor should you have to attend an executive development courseat a prestigious university to get the straight facts What you get from this book, of course, willdepend on your current knowledge about organizational behavior Recent MBAs, for instance,will find this book to be a concise summary of the evidence they spent many months studying.

They won’t see elaborated theories or names of major researchers but they will find accuratetranslations of research findings For individuals who haven’t kept current with research inorganizational behavior or for those with little formal academic training, this book shouldprovide a wealth of new insights into managing people at work.

You’ll find each of the 59 topics in this book is given its own short chapter And eachchapter is essentially independent from the others You can read them in any order you desire.Best of all, you needn’t tackle this book in one sitting It’s been designed for multiple “quickreads.” Read a few chapters, put it down, then pick it up again at a later date There’s nocontinuous story line that has to be maintained.

Let me conclude this preface by stating the obvious: A book is a team project While there isonly one name on the cover, a number of people contributed to getting this book in your hands.That team included Tim Moore, Jeanne Glasser Levine, Jovana San Nicolas-Shirley, and AmyNeidlinger My thanks to each.

Part I: The Truth About Hiring

Truth 1 First Impressions DO Count!

When we meet someone for the first time, we notice a number of things about that person—physical characteristics, clothes, firmness of handshake, gestures, tone of voice, and the like Wethen use these impressions to fit the person into ready-made categories And this earlycategorization, formed quickly and on the basis of minimal information, tends to hold greaterweight than impressions and information received later This categorization is what wecommonly refer to as a first impression.

Psychologists refer to the power of first impressions as the primacy effect Essentially, it justmeans that first impressions influence latter impressions What’s important from our perspectiveis that the primacy effect carries a lot of weight when we assess other people and, maybe moreimportantly, that first impressions of people are not very accurate.

Why do we rely so heavily on first impressions? Basically, we’re looking for a shortcut.When we meet new people, we want to categorize them so that we can process and understandinformation about them quickly The error is compounded by the fact that we tend to cling to ourfirst impressions When later information is received that might contradict that first impression,we tend to discount, misrepresent, reinterpret, or even ignore it.

The best evidence on first impressions comes from research on employment interviews.Findings clearly demonstrate that first impressions count More specifically, the informationprocessed first has a greater effect on later judgments than subsequent information does.

When later information is received that might contradict our first impression, we tend todiscount, misrepresent, reinterpret, or even ignore it.

Research on applicant appearance confirms the power of first impressions Studies havelooked at assessments made of applicants before the actual interview—that brief period in whichthe applicant walks into an interview room, exchanges greetings with the interviewer, sits down,and engages in minor chit-chat The evidence indicates that the way applicants walk, talk, dress,and look can have a great impact on the interviewer’s evaluation of applicant qualifications.Facial attractiveness seems to be particularly influential Applicants who are highly attractive areevaluated as more qualified for a variety of jobs than those who are unattractive.

Initial positive impressions even reshape the interview itself Positive first impressions leadinterviewers to speak in a more pleasant interpersonal style and to ask less-threatening questions.

A final body of confirmative research finds that interviewers’ post-interview evaluations ofapplicants conform, to a substantial degree, to their pre-interview impressions That is, those firstimpressions carry considerable weight in shaping the interviewers’ final evaluations, regardlessof what actually transpired in the interview itself This latter conclusion assumes that theinterview elicits no highly negative information.

Based on numerous studies of the interview process, we can say that first impressions arepowerful influences on outcomes Instead of using the interviews to gather unbiased information,interviewers typically use the process to merely confirm first impressions.

Based on numerous studies of the interview process, we can say that first impressions arepowerful influences on outcomes.

Can managers do anything to lessen the power of first impressions? Yes First, we suggestthat you avoid the tendency to make quick initial judgments Try to stay neutral when you meetsomeone for the first time The more time that goes by before you make a conclusion, the betteryou’ll know the person and the more accurate your assessment Second, keep your mind open fornew information that may contradict earlier assessments Think of any early impression as aworking hypothesis that you’re constantly testing for its accuracy.

Truth 2 Forget Traits; It’s Behavior That Counts!

You’re interviewing applicants to fill a job position in your firm What are you looking for inthese applicants? If you’re like many managers, you’ll answer with terms such as hardworking,persistent, confident, and dependable After all, how can you go wrong trying to hire people withtraits such as these? Well, you can! The problem is that traits aren’t necessarily good predictorsof future job performance.

Most of us have a strong belief in the power of traits to predict behavior We know thatpeople behave differently in different situations, but we tend to classify people by their traits,impose judgments about those traits (being self-assured is “good”; being submissive is “bad”),and make evaluations about people based on these trait classifications Managers often do thiswhen they make hiring decisions or evaluate current employees After all, if managers trulybelieved that situations rather than traits determined behavior, they would hire people almost atrandom and structure the situation to fit the employee’s strengths But the employee selection

process in most organizations places a great deal of emphasis on traits We see this in theemphasis placed on how applicants perform in interviews and on tests During interviews,managers watch and listen to see if applicants have the “qualities” they’re looking for in a“good” employee Similarly, tests are often used to determine the degree to which an applicanthas “good employee traits.”

There are two problems with using traits in the hiring process First, organizational settingsare strong situations that have a large impact on employee behavior Second, individuals arehighly adaptive, and personality traits change in response to organizational situations Let meelaborate on each of these points.

We tend to classify people by their traits.

The effect of traits in explaining behavior is likely to be strongest in relatively weaksituations and weakest in relatively strong situations Organizational settings tend to be strongsituations because they have rules and other formal regulations that define acceptable behaviorand punish deviant behavior, and because they have informal norms that dictate appropriatebehaviors These formal and informal constraints minimize the effects of different personalitytraits In contrast, picnics, parties, and similar informal functions are weak situations, and we’dpredict that traits would be fairly strong predictors of behavior in these situations.

While personality traits are generally stable over time, there is a growing body of evidencethat demonstrates that an individual’s traits are changed by the organization in which thatindividual participates Moreover, people typically belong to multiple organizations (forinstance, community, religious, social, athletic, and political, as well as to an employer) thatoften include very different kinds of members, and they adapt to those different situations Thefact is that people are not prisoners of a rigid and stable personality framework They can, anddo, adjust their behavior to reflect the requirements of various situations.

If traits aren’t very good for predicting future employee behavior, what should managersuse? The answer is: past behaviors! The best predictor of a person’s future behavior is his or herpast behavior So when interviewing candidates, ask questions that focus on previousexperiences that are relevant to the current job opening And ask for actual work experiencesrather than hypothetical ones For instance, ask: “What have you done in previous jobs thatdemonstrates your creativity?” Or “on your last job, what was it that you most wanted to

accomplish but didn’t? Why didn’t you?” And instead of asking “how would you handlesituation xyz?” ask “how did you handle situation xyz?”

The best predictor of a person’s future behavior is his or her past behavior.

Truth 3 Brains Matter; or Why You Should Hire SmartPeople

Few topics generate more heated discussion and controversy than that of intelligence Peopleseem to hold widely differing and strong opinions on questions such as: Is IQ a good measure of

intelligence? Is intelligence learned or inherited? Are intelligent people more successful thantheir less-intelligent peers?

We’re concerned with the relationship between intelligence (or what is technically referredto as general mental ability) and job performance—specifically, do people with higherintelligence outperform their peers with lower intelligence? Not surprisingly, this is a topic inwhich there is no shortage of opinions But don’t put much weight on opinions You should lookfor hard evidence And there is actually quite a bit of hard evidence to draw upon Certain factsare beyond significant technical dispute For instance: (1) IQ score closely matches whatever it is

that people mean when they use the word intelligent or smart in ordinary language; (2) IQ scores

are stable, although not perfectly so, over much of a person’s life; (3) properly administered IQtests are not demonstrably biased against social, economic, ethnic, or racial groups; and (4)smarter employees, on average, are more proficient employees I understand that some of theseconclusions may make you uncomfortable or conflict with your personal views, but they are wellsupported by the research evidence.

All jobs require the use of intelligence or cognitive ability Why? For reasoning and decisionmaking High IQs show a strong correlation with performance in jobs that are novel, ambiguous,changing, or in multifaceted professional occupations such as accountants, engineers, scientists,architects, and physicians But IQ is also a good predictor in moderately complex jobs, such ascrafts, clerical, and police work IQ is a less valid predictor for unskilled jobs that require onlyroutine decision making or simple problem solving.

Smarter employees, on average, are more proficient employees.

Intelligence clearly is not the only factor affecting job performance, but it’s often the mostimportant It is, for example, a better predictor of job performance than an employmentinterview, reference checks, or college transcripts Unfortunately, the strong genetic componentof IQ—probably 70 percent or more of our intelligence is inherited—makes the use of IQ as aselection tool vulnerable to attack Critics are uncomfortable when average IQs are shown todiffer among different races or that IQ has been found to be associated with economicdifferences Some critics use these findings to suggest that IQ measures discriminate and,therefore, should be abandoned This is unfortunate because the evidence overwhelminglyindicates that IQ tests are not biased against particular groups, even though what they measure islargely outside the control of the individual.

All jobs require the use of intelligence or cognitive ability.

Our conclusion: The race may not always go to the swiftest or the strongest, but that’s theway to bet! If you want to hire the best possible workforce, all other things being equal, hire thesmartest people you can find.

Truth 4 When in Doubt, Hire Conscientious People!

We know that people don’t have common personalities Some are quiet and passive; others areloud and aggressive Some are relaxed; others are tense.

An extensive amount of research has identified five basic dimensions that explain thesignificant variation in human personality These five factors are

• Extraversion—Are you an extravert (outgoing, sociable) or an introvert (reserved, timid)?• Agreeableness—Are you highly agreeable (cooperative, trusting) or low (disagreeable,

(conventional, seek the familiar)?

Conscientiousness predicts job performance across a broad spectrum of jobs—from professionalsto police, salespeople, and semi-skilled workers.

Numerous studies have been undertaken to see if there is any relationship between these fivepersonality dimensions and job performance Findings indicate that conscientiousness is mostrelated to job performance Specifically, conscientiousness predicts job performance across abroad spectrum of jobs—from professionals (engineers, accountants, lawyers) to police,salespeople, and semi-skilled workers Individuals who score high in conscientiousness aredependable, reliable, careful, thorough, able to plan, organized, hardworking, persistent, andachievement-oriented And these attributes tend to lead to higher job performance in mostoccupations Additionally, research indicates that the power of conscientiousness transfers acrossborders For instance, a review of studies covering people in 15 European countries foundconscientiousness to predict performance across jobs and occupational groups.

So, in contrast to our conclusions in Truth 2, “Forget Traits; It’s Behavior That Counts,” ifyou’re looking for a single personality characteristic that is likely to be associated with high jobperformance, you’re well advised to try to hire people who score high on conscientiousness Letme note, however, one interesting caveat: More of this trait is not necessarily better Evidenceindicates that extremely conscientious people typically don’t perform any better in their jobs thanthose who are merely above average.

Our conclusions on conscientiousness, of course, don’t mean that other characteristics mightnot be relevant for specific jobs For instance, evidence indicates that extraversion is a goodpredictor of performance in managerial and sales positions This makes sense since theseoccupations involve high social interaction.

You’re well advised to try to hire people who score high on conscientiousness.

Some readers might be surprised that high emotional stability wasn’t found to be related tojob performance Intuitively, it would seem that people who are calm and secure would do better

on almost all jobs than people who are anxious and insecure Closer inspection suggests that onlypeople who have fairly high scores on emotional stability retain their jobs So the range amongthose people studied, all of whom were employed, tended to be quite small In other words,people who are low in emotional stability either don’t tend to get hired in the first place or, whenthey do, they typically don’t last too long in their jobs.

Truth 5 Want Friendly Employees? It’s in the Genes!

Executives at Southwest Airlines recognize what many managers fail to notice: Some people arejust inherently more friendly and upbeat than others Southwest believes, and rightly so, that it’sdifficult, if not impossible, to train people to provide friendly and courteous service SoSouthwest Airlines focuses its hiring process on selecting out people who aren’t basically happyand outgoing.

A number of jobs—flight attendants, retail clerks, salespeople, and customer service aresome obvious examples—are performed better by people with positive dispositions Manymanagers trying to fill these jobs have assumed that pleasant employees can be created Theyspend a lot of their time trying to design motivating jobs, working conditions, or attractivecompensation and benefit programs to encourage their employees to be friendly and upbeat.Additionally, they spend millions of dollars on training to shape behavior Most of theseprograms fail to achieve their objective Why? Because whether a person is happy or not isessentially determined by his or her genetic structure Studies have found that 35 to 50 percent,and maybe as much as 80 percent, of people’s differences in happiness is attributable to theirgenes.

Studies have found that 35 to 50 percent, and maybe as much as 80 percent, of people’sdifferences in happiness is attributable to their genes.

One of the more interesting streams of research on this subject has been done by comparingsets of identical twins who were separated at birth and raised apart If environment were theprime shaper of personality, you’d think that the twins would likely have little in common if theywere raised in very different households But that’s not the case One set of twins, for example,had been separated for 39 years and raised 45 miles apart Nevertheless, they drove the samemodel and color of car, chain-smoked the same brand of cigarette, owned dogs with the samename, and regularly vacationed within three blocks of each other at a beach community 1,500miles away Evidence like this has led researchers to conclude that genetics accounts for about50 percent of the personality similarities between twins.

Analysis of satisfaction data for individuals over a 50-year period found that individualresults were amazingly stable over time, even when these people changed employers andoccupations This analysis and other evidence suggests that an individual’s disposition towardlife is largely established by his or her genetic makeup, that it holds over time, and carries overinto his or her disposition toward work.

An individual’s disposition toward life holds over time and carries over into his or herdisposition toward work.

The message here is to follow Southwest’s example If you want pleasant employees, focusyour attention on the hiring process Select out the negative, maladjusted, trouble-making faultfinders who derive little satisfaction in anything about their jobs How? Through personalitytesting, in-depth interviewing, and careful checking of applicant’s previous work records.

Truth 6 Realistic Job Previews: What You See Is What YouGet

Think back to the last time you went for a job interview Once the interviewer got past askingyou questions, how did he or she describe the job and organization? Most managers, whenconducting employment interviews, almost exclusively focus on positive aspects They talkabout interesting work assignments, the camaraderie among coworkers, opportunities foradvancement, great benefits, and the like Even though managers typically know the downside ofthe job and the organization, they carefully avoid those topics Why turn off a good job applicantby talking about negatives?

Managers who focus only on the positives are making a mistake They’re setting themselvesup for the disappointment of a sudden and surprising resignation All those hours spentreviewing candidate applications and conducting interviews prove wasted when after only a fewweeks or a month into the job, the new employee abruptly quits.

Is there anything an astute manager can do to avoid this experience? The answer is Yes: Userealistic job previews.

Managers who focus only on the positives are making a mistake.

Realistic job previews provide job applicants with both unfavorable and favorableinformation before an offer is made It’s in direct contrast to the typical job previews that mostmanagers give during the interview stage—carefully worded descriptions that sell the positiveaspects of the new job and the organization All these do is set up the employee with falseexpectations No job or organization is perfect And you’re more likely to keep your new hires ifyou’re straight with them from the beginning.

Why do realistic previews reduce turnover? The evidence indicates that this opennessenhances the perception in applicants of the organization’s honesty.

When the information that a job applicant receives is excessively inflated, a number ofthings happen that have potentially negative effects on the organization First, mismatchedapplicants who would probably become dissatisfied with the job and soon quit are less likely toselect themselves out of the search process Second, the absence of negative information buildsunrealistic expectations If hired, the new employee is likely to become quickly disappointed.This, in turn, leads to low employee satisfaction and premature resignations Finally, new hiresare prone to becoming disillusioned and less committed to the organization when they comeface-to-face with the negatives in the job No one likes to feel as if he or she was tricked ormisled during the hiring process.

You’re more likely to keep your new hires if you’re straight with them from the beginning.A realistic job preview balances both the positive and negative aspects of the job Forinstance, in addition to positive comments, managers could tell candidates that there are limitedopportunities to talk with coworkers during work hours, or that erratic fluctuations in workloadscreate considerable stress on employees during rush periods Anousheh Ansari, chief operatingofficer at Telecom Technologies, is a proponent of realistic previews She says she purposelypaints a gloomy picture and tries to scare prospective employees during interviews For example,she tells them that they’ll be expected to put in 10- and 12-hour workdays “Some people run inthe opposite direction, but the ones who stay are committed and willing to do whatever it takes,”she says.

The evidence indicates that applicants who have been given a realistic job preview holdlower and more realistic expectations about the job they’ll be doing and are better prepared forcoping with the job and its frustrating elements The result is fewer unexpected resignations.While presenting only the positive aspects of a job to a recruit may initially entice him or her tojoin the organization, it may be a marriage that both you and the new employee will quicklyregret.

Truth 7 Throw Out Your Age Stereotypes

There are numerous age stereotypes about older workers (typically defined as those over age 55)—and most of them are negative Some of the more popular ones include: Older workers tiremore easily; can’t learn new skills; lack flexibility; resist change; don’t work well with youngerbosses; are less productive than younger colleagues; have reduced cognitive abilities; and missmore work days due to illnesses The truth is that most of these stereotypes are wrong.

Why is it important for managers to overcome any negative stereotypes of older workers?The answer is simply that the workforce is aging and managers can expect to be working witholder employees Even ignoring the legal repercussions from age discrimination, this hasimportant implications for managers The reality is that the workforce is aging in the U.S and inother industrial nations For instance, in the U.S., between 1998 and 2008, civilian workers aged55 and over increased 49.9 percent compared with just 5.5 percent for those 25–54 and an actualdecrease of 2.8 percent for those 16–24 By the year 2015, over 20 percent of the U.S workforcewill be 55 or older As a manager, you’re very likely to be hiring, working with, or working forsomeone who is older—and holding inaccurate stereotypes can be a serious impediment to thatrelationship Now, let’s look at the evidence.

The workforce is aging and managers can expect to be working with older employees.

Many believe job productivity declines with age And at first glance, that may seem logical.As we age, our vision and hearing often decline So do our muscular strength, manual dexterity,and reaction time But these factors don’t necessarily translate into impaired performancebecause they tend to be offset by experience, judgment, and a strong work ethic The overallevidence indicates that age and job performance are unrelated In fact, performance oftenimproves with age and when declines occur, they tend to be small One likely explanation for

why performance increases with age is that older workers tend to have longer job tenure, andincreases in job tenure are associated with higher job performance The evidence also shows thatthere are much greater differences in job performance within age groups than between agegroups That is, it’s the individual differences between people within age groups that matter mostwhen predicting job performance.

The overall evidence indicates that age and job performance are unrelated.

What about factors such as cognitive abilities, absenteeism, turnover, and ability to learn?Studies comparing samples of older and younger workers in objective tests of cognitive abilitiesfound no significant differences between the groups Where small decreases in older workershave been found, it tends not to affect performance Older workers appear to use their experienceto cope and compensate for any age-related decline in cognitive skills.

The findings on absenteeism are mixed While most studies show that absences decline withage, a closer examination finds it is partially a function of whether the absence is avoidable orunavoidable In general, older employees have lower rates of avoidable absence than do youngeremployees However, they have equal rates of unavoidable absence, such as those due tosickness.

In terms of turnover, the evidence is quite clear: The older you get, the less likely you are toquit your job Of course, this isn’t an unexpected finding You would expect older workers to bemore stable for several reasons As workers get older, they have fewer alternative jobopportunities because their skills have become more specialized Additionally, their long tenurealso often tends to provide them with higher wage rates, longer paid vacations, and moreattractive pension benefits.

Finally, what about older workers’ ability to learn? The evidence here is also mixed Olderworkers can learn “new tricks,” but often complete training more slowly than their youngercounterparts There is also evidence that the type of training may influence its effectiveness.Some training methods, such as active participation, modeling, and self-paced learning, appear tobe more effective with older workers.

Truth 8 Match Personalities and Jobs

Want to increase the satisfaction of new employees and decrease the likelihood that they’llresign? There is a substantial amount of evidence that demonstrates this can be achieved byselecting job applicants whose personality matches the job you’re trying to fill.

Six personality types have been identified, and evidence strongly supports that people arehappiest when they are put in jobs that align with their personality Those six personalities arerealistic, investigative, social, conventional, enterprising, and artistic.

People are happiest when they are put in jobs that align with their personality.

• Realistic people prefer physical activities that require skill, strength, and coordination Their

personality traits: shy, genuine, persistent, stable, conforming, and practical Examples of jobsthat align with their personality include mechanic, drill press operator, assembly-line worker, andfarmer.

• Investigative people prefer activities that involve thinking, organizing, and understanding Their

personality traits: analytical, original, curious, and independent Examples of jobs that align withtheir personality include biologist, economist, software programmer, mathematician, and newsreporter.

• Social people prefer activities that involve helping and developing others Their personality

traits: sociable, friendly, cooperative, and understanding Examples of jobs that align with theirpersonality include social worker, teacher, counselor, and clinical psychologist.

• Conventional people prefer rule-regulated, orderly, and unambiguous activities Their

personality traits: conforming, efficient, practical, unimaginative, and inflexible Examples ofjobs that align with their personality include accountant, corporate manager, bank teller, and fileclerk.

• Enterprising people prefer verbal activities in which there are opportunities to influence others

and attain power Their personality traits: self-confident, ambitious, energetic, and domineering.Examples of jobs that align with their personality include lawyer, real estate agent, public-relations specialist, and small-business manager.

• Artistic people prefer ambiguous and unsystematic activities that allow creative expression.

Their personality traits: imaginative, disorderly, idealistic, emotional, and impractical Examplesof jobs that align with their personality include painter, musician, writer, and interior decorator.The evidence indicates that people in jobs congruent with their personality tend to be moresatisfied and less likely to voluntarily resign than people in incongruent jobs Social individuals,for instance, should be in social jobs, conventional people in conventional jobs, and so forth Inaddition, personalities can be conceptualized in a circle Points on that circle would be in thisorder: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, conventional, and back to realistic.Findings support that the closer two personalities are in that circle, the more compatible they are.And adjacent categories are most similar So a realistic person in an investigative job is morecongruent—and should be more content—than if he or she were in a social job.

Managers should assess vocational interests in the hiring process.

Our conclusion is that managers should assess vocational interests in the hiring process Andwhen interests and job requirements are matched successfully, there is an increased likelihoodthat hirees will perform well on the job and stay with the organization.

Truth 9 Hire People Who Fit Your Culture: My “GoodEmployee” Is Your Stinker!

Many a manager has hired a new employee based largely on his or her skills and then lived toregret it While skill competence is certainly an important ingredient in the making of a “goodemployee,” never underestimate the role that an organization’s culture plays in an employee’ssuccess or failure.

Employee performance typically has a large subjective component Bosses and colleagueshave to make interpretations: Is Dave a team player? Is Tina taking unnecessary risks? Is Lauratoo competitive? And whether those interpretations are positive or negative depend to a greatextent on how well an employee is perceived to fit into the organization A good person-organization fit goes a long way toward ensuring that an employee will be perceived as a highperformer.

Never underestimate the role that an organization’s culture plays in an employee’s success orfailure.

An organization’s culture represents a system of shared meaning It expresses the core valuesthat are shared by a majority of the organization’s members The culture at Ireland’s Ryanair, forexample, values aggressiveness and competition In contrast, Johnson & Johnson has acommunal culture that emphasizes a strong family feel and values trust and loyalty The typical“good” employee at Ryanair looks and behaves very differently from the typical “good”employee at J&J Similarly, Walmart’s obsession with cost-minimization creates a very differentculture, and attracts and promotes a different type of employee than does Nordstrom, whoseculture is defined by commitment to customer service.

As a manager, you should assess potential employees in terms of how well you think theywill fit into your organization’s culture You want to hire people whose values are essentiallyconsistent with those of the organization, or at least a good portion of those values If you beginby getting a solid handle on what your organization values and rewards, you’re well on your wayto determining whether a candidate will be a good match Ask questions and make observationsthat will allow you to determine the applicant’s propensity to be innovative and take risks, tofocus on “the big picture” versus the details, to emphasize means or ends, to be team oriented orindividualistic, to be aggressive and competitive versus easygoing, and whether he or she prefersthe status quo to growth These are the primary elements that identify organizational cultures.You should assess potential employees in terms of how well you think they will fit into yourorganization’s culture.

What can you expect to happen if you make a mistake and hire a few candidates who don’tfit with your firm’s culture? It’s likely you’ll wind up with hires who lack motivation andcommitment and who are dissatisfied with their jobs and the organization They’ll get lowerperformance evaluations than employees with similar objective performance but whose valuesalign with the organization And, not surprisingly, employee “misfits” have considerably higherturnover rates than individuals who perceive a good fit Most people pick up the cues that theydon’t fit in and, assuming other job options are available, leave in search of a job where they’remore likely to be appreciated.

Truth 10 Good Citizenship Counts!

All other things equal, most managers want employees who will do more than their usual jobduties They want employees who will go beyond expectations Employees who exhibitdiscretionary behavior that is not part of their formal job requirements, but that promotes theorganization’s operations, are said to be good citizens And in today’s workplace, whereflexibility is critical, jobs are fluid, work is often done in teams, and job descriptions frequentlyfail to include all the essential tasks that need to be done, top-performing managers needindividuals who display good citizenship behavior.

What is good citizenship behavior? Examples include employees making constructive

statements about their work group and the organization, helping others on their team,volunteering for extra job activities, avoiding unnecessary conflicts, showing care fororganizational property, respecting the spirit as well as the letter of rules and regulations, andgracefully tolerating the occasional work-related impositions and nuisances Not surprisingly,studies indicate that those organizational units that have employees who exhibit good citizenshipbehaviors outperform those that don’t.

Managers want employees who will go beyond expectations.

So what can managers do to stimulate good citizenship among employees? The answerseems to be: Treat people fairly When people believe outcomes, treatment, and procedures arefair, they are more likely to talk positively about the organization, help others, and go beyond thenormal expectations in their job If your employees feel that you, your organization’s procedures,and company pay policies are fair, trust is developed And when employees trust you and theorganization, they’re more willing to voluntarily engage in behaviors that go beyond their formaljob requirements.

Employees who exhibit good citizenship behaviors outperform those who don’t.

Truth 11 Manage the Socialization of New Employees

All Marines must go through a multiweek boot camp, where they “prove” their commitment Atthe same time, the Marine trainers are indoctrinating new recruits in the “Marine way.” In asimilar, but less elaborate manner, Starbucks puts all new employees through 24 hours oftraining to teach them the Starbucks philosophy, the company jargon, and the ins-and-outs ofStarbucks’ coffee business.

The Marines and Starbucks use their formal training programs to socialize new members.They’re helping employees adapt to their organization’s culture Why? Because no matter howgood a job an organization does in recruitment and selection, new employees are not fullyindoctrinated in the organization’s culture Socialization turns outsiders into insiders and fine-tunes employee behaviors so they align with what management wants.

Socialization turns outsiders into insiders and fine-tunes employee behaviors so they align withwhat management wants.

When hiring a new employee, you have four decisions you can make—each of which willaffect the shaping of that new hires’ behavior:

First, will socialization be formal or informal? The more a new employee is segregated from the

ongoing work setting and differentiated in some way to make explicit his or her newcomer’srole, the more formal socialization is The Marines and Starbucks’ specific orientation andtraining programs are examples of a formal process Informal socialization just puts the newemployee directly into his or her job, with little or no special attention.

Second, will socialization be done individually or collectively? Most employees are socialized

individually But they also can be grouped together and processed through an identical set ofexperiences as in military boot camp.

Third, will socialization be serial or random? Serial socialization is characterized by the use of

role models who train and encourage the newcomer Apprenticeship and mentoring programs areexamples In random socialization, role models are deliberately withheld The new employee isleft on his or her own to figure things out.

Finally, will socialization seek investiture or divestiture? Investiture assumes that the

newcomer’s qualities and qualifications are the necessary ingredients for job success, so thesequalities and qualifications are confirmed and supported Divestiture tries to strip away certaincharacteristics of the new hire College fraternity and sorority “pledges” go through divestituresocialization to shape them into the proper role.

Generally speaking, the more that management relies on socialization programs that areformal, collective, serial, and emphasize divestiture, the greater the likelihood that newcomers’differences and perspectives will be stripped away and replaced by standardized and predictablebehaviors Conversely, the use of informal, individual, random, and investiture options willcreate a workforce of individualists So managers can use socialization as a tool to createconformists who maintain traditions and customs or, at the other extreme, inventive and creativeindividuals who consider no organizational practice sacred.

Managers can use socialization as a tool.

Part II: The Truth About Motivation

Truth 12 Why Many Workers Aren’t Motivated at WorkToday

I often hear experienced managers complain that “people just aren’t motivated to workanymore.” If this is true, the fault is with managers and organizational practices, not theemployees! When employees lack motivation, the problem almost always lies in one of five

areas: selection, ambiguous goals, the performance appraisal system, the organization’s rewardsystem, or in the manager’s inability to shape employee’s perception of the appraisal and rewardsystems.

The best way to understand employee motivation is to think of it as being dependent on threerelationships When all three of these relationships are strong, employees tend to be motivated Ifany one or more of these relationships are weak, employee effort is likely to suffer I’ll presentthese relationships in terms of questions.

If employees aren’t motivated, the fault is with managers and organizational practices, not theemployees!

First, do employees believe that if they give a maximum effort, it will be recognized in theirperformance appraisal? For a lot of employees, the answer is unfortunately: No Why? Their skilllevel may be deficient, which means that no matter how hard they try, they’re not likely to behigh performers Or, if the organization’s performance appraisal system is designed to assessnonperformance factors such as loyalty or initiative, more effort won’t necessarily result in ahigher appraisal Still another possibility is that the employee, rightly or wrongly, perceives thathe or she is disliked by the boss As a result, the employee will expect to get a poor appraisalregardless of his or her level of effort These examples suggest that one possible source of lowemployee motivation is the employee’s belief that, no matter how hard he or she works, thelikelihood of getting a good performance appraisal is low.

Second, do employees believe that if they get a good performance appraisal, it will lead toorganizational rewards? Many employees see the performance-reward relationship in their job asweak The reason is that organizations reward a lot of things besides just performance Forexample, when pay is allocated to employees on the basis of seniority or “kissing up” to the boss,employees are likely to see the performance-reward relationship as being weak anddemotivating.

Many employees see the performance-reward relationship in their job as weak.

Last, are the rewards the employees receive the ones that they want? An employee may workhard in hopes of getting a promotion, but gets a pay raise instead Or an employee wants a moreinteresting and challenging job, but receives only a few words of praise Or an employee puts inextra effort, expecting to be relocated to the company’s Paris office, but instead is transferred toPhoenix These examples illustrate the importance of tailoring the rewards to individualemployee needs Sadly, many managers are limited in the rewards they can distribute, so it’sdifficult for them to individualize rewards Moreover, some managers incorrectly assume that allemployees want the same thing and overlook the motivational effects of differentiating rewards.In either case, employee motivation is suboptimized.

In summary, a lot of employees lack motivation at work because they see a weakrelationship between their effort and performance, between performance and organizationalrewards, and/or between the rewards they receive and the ones they really want If you wantmotivated employees, you need to do what’s necessary to strengthen these relationships.

Truth 13 Telling Employees to “Do Your Best” Isn’t Likelyto Achieve Their Best

A friend of mine, who manages a group of software programmers in Seattle, was recently tellingme what a great staff he had and how much faith he had in them “When I hand out anassignment, I merely tell my people, ‘Do your best No one can ask more of you than that.’” Ithink my friend was a bit perplexed when I told him that wasn’t the best way to motivate hisstaff I felt pretty confident in telling him that he would have better success by giving specificand challenging goals to each employee or work team.

There is a mountain of evidence that tells us that people perform best when they have goals.More to the point, we can say that specific goals increase performance; that difficult goals, whenaccepted, result in higher performance than do easy goals; and that feedback leads to higherperformance than does nonfeedback.

Specific hard goals produce a higher level of output than does the generalized goal of “doyour best.” Why? It’s the specificity of the goal itself that acts as an internal stimulus Goals tellemployees what needs to be done and how much effort they’ll need to expend to achieve it Forinstance, if my Seattle friend’s software programmers committed to complete their currentproject by the last business day of next month, they would now have a specific objective to try toattain We can say that, all things being equal, the individual or team with a specific goal willoutperform his or her counterparts operating with no goals or the generalized goal of “do yourbest.”

Specific hard goals produce a higher level of output than does the generalized goal of “do yourbest.”

If factors such as ability and acceptance of the goals are held constant, we can also state withconfidence that the more difficult the goal, the higher the level of performance More difficultgoals encourage people to extend their reach and work harder Of course, it’s logical to assumethat easier goals are more likely to be accepted But once an employee accepts a hard task, he orshe is likely to exert a high level of effort to achieve it The challenge for managers is to haveemployees see difficult goals as attainable.

There is considerable evidence that tells us that people will do better when they get feedbackon how well they’re progressing toward their goals because feedback helps to identifydiscrepancies between what they’ve accomplished and what they want to do That is, feedbackacts to guide behavior But all feedback is not equally potent Self-generated feedback—in whichan employee is able to monitor his or her own progress—has been shown to be a more powerfulmotivator than externally generated feedback from a boss or coworkers.

The advice given here about specific hard goals and feedback may seem obvious or eventrite But, in practice, a large number of managers continue to ignore their value Studiesconsistently show a large percentage of employees believe they lack specific goals on their joband also complain about a lack of performance feedback.

A large percentage of employees believe they lack specific goals on their job.

One final point before we leave this topic: Our claims about the power of goals is culturebound Goals are well adapted to countries such as the United States and Canada because theymesh well with North American cultures Goals require employees to be reasonably independentand employers to put a high importance on performance Those requirements are not necessarilytrue in every country For instance, don’t expect goals to necessarily lead to higher employeeperformance in countries such as Portugal or Chile.

Truth 14 Not Everyone Wants to Participate in SettingGoals

Contemporary managers have been well schooled in the importance of using participation—thatis, having managers share a significant degree of decision-making power with their employees.Participative leadership and decision making have been preached by business schools since the1960s For instance, the late management-guru Peter Drucker considered participation in goalsetting to be a necessary part of his Management By Objectives doctrine Some academics haveeven proposed that participative management is an ethical imperative.

In the last 50-plus years, we have seen the decline (and near extinction) of the autocrat, to bereplaced by the participative manager So you might find it surprising that when it comes tosetting goals, we discover an interesting finding: It may not matter if employee goals areassigned by the boss or participatively set The evidence shows little consistent superiority forgoals that are set participatively between employees and their bosses over those unilaterallyassigned by bosses.

The logic behind participation is well known As jobs have become more complex, managersrarely know everything their employees do Thus, participation allows those who know the mostto contribute Participation also increases commitment to decisions People are less likely toundermine a decision at the time of its implementation if they shared in making that decision.But the evidence doesn’t support the idea that participatively set goals are superior to assignedones In some cases, participatively set goals achieve superior performance; in other cases,individuals perform best when assigned goals by their boss The only advantage thatparticipation may provide is that it tends to increase acceptance of a goal People are more likelyto accept even a difficult goal if it is participatively set rather than arbitrarily assigned by theirboss Thus, although participative goals may have no superiority over assigned goals whenacceptance is taken as a given, participation does increase the probability that more difficultgoals will be agreed to and acted upon.

The evidence doesn’t support the idea that participatively set goals are superior to assigned ones.You may be wondering: Why wouldn’t people always do better under participatively setgoals? That’s a good question Let me attempt an answer The explanation may lie in theconditions that are required for participation to be effective For participation to work, there mustbe adequate time to participate, the issues in which employees get involved must be relevant to

their interests, employees must have the ability (intelligence, technical knowledge,communication skills) to participate, and the organization’s culture must support employeeinvolvement These conditions are not always met in many work places In addition, whilebehavioral scientists often ignore this reality, the truth is that some people don’t want theresponsibilities that come with participation They prefer to be told what to do and let their bossdo the worrying These conditions and realities may explain why the use of employeeparticipation is no sure means for improving employee performance.

Participation is no sure means for improving employee performance.

Truth 15 Professional Workers Go for the Flow

Can you think of times in your life when you’ve been so deeply involved in something thatnothing else seems to matter? The task consumes you totally and you lose track of time Mostpeople can It’s most likely to occur when you’re doing a favorite activity: running, skiing,dancing, reading a novel, playing a computer game, listening to music, cooking an elegant meal.This totally involved state is called flow Managers should look to flow as a particularly effectiveway to motivate professional employees.

Research finds that the flow experience itself isn’t necessarily a time when people are happy.It’s a period of deep concentration But when a flow task is completed, and the individual looksback on what has happened, he or she is flooded with feelings of gratitude for the experience It’sthen that the person realizes the satisfaction received from the experience and how it made himor her happier.

The flow experience isn’t necessarily a time when people are happy.

Are there conditions that are likely to produce flow? Yes When people describe flowexperiences, they talk about common characteristics in the tasks they were doing The tasks werechallenging and required using a high level of skills The tasks were goal-directed and providedthem with feedback on how well they were performing The tasks also demanded totalconcentration and creativity And the tasks were so consuming that people had no attention leftover to think about anything irrelevant or to worry about problems.

Here’s something that might surprise you: The flow experience is rarely reported by people

when they’re doing leisure activities such as watching television or relaxing Flow is most

likely to be experienced at work, not at home!

If you ask people whether they’d like to work less, the answer is almost always yes Peopleassociate leisure with happiness They think if they had more free time, they’d be happier.Studies of thousands of individuals suggest that people are generally wrong in this belief Whenpeople spend time at home, for instance, they often lack a clear purpose, don’t know how wellthey’re doing, get distracted, and feel that their skills are underutilized They frequently describethemselves as bored But work has many of the properties that stimulate flow It often has cleargoals It provides people with feedback on how well they’re doing—either from the workprocess itself or through a boss’s evaluation People’s skills are typically matched to their jobs,

which provides challenge And jobs usually encourage concentration and prevent distractions.The end result is that work, rather than leisure, more clearly mirrors the flow that people mightget from games, sport, music, or art.

Flow is most likely to be experienced at work, not at home.

What are the managerial implications from flow research? Work, itself, can be a powerfulmotivator It can provide a feeling of happiness that most leisure activities can’t So, wherepossible, design jobs with challenging, creative, and consuming tasks that allow employees toutilize their skills, and ensure that these tasks have clear goals and provide employees withfeedback.

Truth 16 When Giving Feedback: Criticize Behaviors, NotPeople

It seems pretty simple, but it’s amazing how many managers ignore this advice when givingfeedback to employees: Criticize employee behaviors, not the people themselves Successfulfeedback focuses on specific behavior and is impersonal.

Feedback should be specific rather than general Managers should avoid making statementssuch as “You have a bad attitude” or “I’m really impressed with the good job you did.” Thesetypes of statements are vague and, while they provide information, they don’t tell the employee

enough to correct the “bad attitude” or on what basis it was concluded that a “good job” had

been done For clarity, here are some examples of what good feedback is like: “Bob, I’mconcerned with your attitude toward your work You were a half-hour late to yesterday’s staffmeeting, and then you told me you hadn’t read the preliminary report we were discussing.Today, you tell me you’re taking off three hours early for a dental appointment”; or “Jan, I wasreally pleased with the job you did on the Phillips account They increased their purchases fromus by 22 percent last month, and I got a call a few days ago from Dan Phillips complimenting meon how quickly you responded to those specification changes for the MJ-7 microchip.” Both of

these statements focus on specific behaviors They tell the recipient why you are being critical or

Successful feedback focuses on specific behavior and is impersonal.

In addition, feedback—especially the negative kind—should be descriptive rather thanjudgmental or evaluative No matter how upset a manager might be, for instance, he or sheshould keep the feedback job-related and never criticize someone personally because of aninappropriate action Telling people they’re “stupid,” “incompetent,” or the like is almost alwayscounterproductive It provokes such an emotional reaction that the performance deviation itself isapt to be overlooked When a manager is criticizing an employee, that manager is censuring ajob-related behavior, not the person You may be tempted to tell someone he or she is “rude andinsensitive” (which may be true); however, that’s hardly impersonal Better to say somethinglike, “You interrupted me three times with questions that were not urgent, when you knew I wastalking long distance to a customer in Ireland.”

Feedback should be descriptive rather than judgmental or evaluative.

One final point on feedback: If negative, make sure the behavior is controllable by therecipient There’s little constructive value in reminding a person of some shortcoming overwhich he or she has no control Negative feedback, therefore, should be directed toward behaviorthe recipient can do something about So, for example, to criticize an employee who is latebecause he forgot to set his wake-up alarm is valid To criticize him for being late when thesubway he takes to work every day had a power failure, trapping him underground for half anhour, is pointless There is nothing he could do to correct what happened.

Truth 17 Managing Across the Generation Gap

Jan Stewart couldn’t believe her ears On her phone was the mother of one of her employees,complaining about the long hours that Ms Stewart was asking her son to put in at work SaidStewart, “I’ve had employees complain to me before, but never a parent!”

Jan Stewart was getting a first-hand taste of what it can be like managing employees whohave been coddled and protected by “helicopter” parents Welcome to the challenges ofmanaging workers from Generation Y.

Most current employees fall into one of three generational groups, differentiated by whenthey were born There are the Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964; the Gen Xers, bornbetween 1965 and 1977; and Generation Y, also sometimes referred to as the Net Generation orMillennials They were born between 1978 and 1991 Does the fact that two employees wereboth born in the same year mean that they will definitely have a set of common values? No Butvalues are imprinted for life by defining historical events Shared experiences then lead toshaping common values So the following insights can help you to better understand individualvalues and mindsets, the differences between generations, and the challenges of managing andmotivating workers born in different eras.

Values are imprinted for life by defining historical events.

Baby Boomers were born after World War II when veterans returned to their families.Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, Boomers were influenced by times of prosperity, safety, andthe belief that anything is possible And being the largest generation in history, they areinherently competitive They entered the workforce from the mid-1960s through the mid-1980s.They place a great deal of emphasis on achievement and material success, but dislikeauthoritarianism and laziness Managers should give these employees challenging goals andleave them alone.

The lives of Gen Xers have been shaped by globalization, two-career parents, MTV, AIDS,and computers Xers value flexibility, life options, and the achievement of job satisfaction Asthe children of workaholic Baby Boomers, they grew up as latchkey kids They tend to beindependent and self-reliant Family and relationships are very important In search of balance intheir lives, Xers are less willing to make personal sacrifices for the sake of their employer They

strive for work-life balance So managers should give these employees flexibility and providethem with the freedom to balance work and personal obligations.

Generation Y has been shaped by helicopter parents who hovered over their children andfocused on building self-esteem These parents downplayed competition and believed that thereshould be no winners and losers—everyone gets a participatory ribbon! Gen Y prefers teamwork,continuous performance feedback, and is totally at ease with technology They are good atmultitasking and have a strong desire to learn new things They are also ambitious, but oftenunrealistic, in their career expectations; and often characterized as entitled and needy They wantbosses who provide ongoing coaching or mentoring and give preference to a good workplaceover salary or benefits Managers should give Gen Y regular feedback, provide clear guidance,design work around team collaboration, and widen job descriptions to allow opportunities tolearn new skills.

Gen Y prefers teamwork, continuous performance feedback, and is totally at ease withtechnology.

Truth 18 You Get What You Reward

A management consultant specializing in police research noticed that, in one community,officers would come on duty for their shift, proceed to get into their police cars, drive to thehighway that cut through the town, and speed back and forth along this highway for their entireshift Clearly, this fast cruising had little to do with good police work But this behavior madeconsiderably more sense once the consultant learned that the community’s city council usedmileage on police vehicles as a measure of police effectiveness The city council unintentionallywas rewarding “putting lots of miles on police cars,” so that’s what officers emphasized.

Managers routinely reward employee behaviors they’re trying to discourage and fail toreward the behaviors they actually want A few examples illustrate this sad fact: Managementsays it wants to build teamwork, actually rewards individual accomplishments, and then wonderswhy employees compete against each other and are constantly looking out for Number One.Management talks up the importance of quality but then ignores employees who turn out shoddywork and punishes those who fail to meet their production goals because they’re focusing onquality Senior executives speak out loudly about the importance of their managers actingethically and then give a big promotion to a manager whose ethical conduct is clearly suspect.Managers routinely reward employee behaviors they’re trying to discourage and fail to rewardthe behaviors they actually want.

Consistent with Truth 12, Why Many Workers Aren’t Motivated at Work Today,” managerswho claim that their employees seem to be lacking motivation should review their rewardsystems to consider the possibility that they’re paying off for behavior other than what they’reseeking This review should begin by assessing what types of behaviors are currently beingrewarded What this assessment too often finds is that organizations are not rewarding what theyassume they are Obviously, if this is the case, then the reward system needs to be changed to get

the desired behaviors If you want quality, reward quality If you want ethical behavior, thenreward employees who act ethically.

If you want quality, reward quality.

Modifying reward systems doesn’t have to be a complex undertaking Small adjustments canmake big differences And the little techniques you use at home can often be applied at theworkplace For instance, if you buy a single candy bar for your two kids, can you expect them tofight over who gets which half? Probably Have you ever just given the candy bar to one of them,told him to cut it in half, and then let his brother or sister have first choice on which half he orshe wants? This simple process of rewarding joint responsibility typically results in a precise andfair slicing up of the candy bar and a marked decline in fighting This same logic was recentlyused by a department head who had to allocate offices in the company’s new building Two ofhis employees, who had never gotten along, were wasting a lot of time arguing which one of the10 offices allocated to the department each would take It seemed that whichever one Davewanted, that would also be the one that Chuck preferred After weeks of haggling, thedepartment head told Dave to make two choices and that he was going to let Chuck make thefirst selection and Dave would get the other The end result was that Dave sought two offices thatwere both acceptable to him, Chuck got “the pick of the litter,” and both were happy.

One last comment The importance of rewarding the right behaviors never was clearer to methan when I saw a rich relative continually tell her son, “Don’t worry about saving money.You’ll have plenty when I’m gone.” That relative lived a very long life, and she could neverunderstand why her son looked forward to her demise Clearly, she would have gotten a verydifferent behavior from her son had she made his inheritance conditioned on her longevity Hewould have been far more supportive of her living a long life had she said in her latter years,“I’m going to give you $50,000 the first of every year for as long as I live But when I go, all myremaining money will go to charity.” Had she taken this approach, her son would have a vestedinterest in prolonging her life, not shortening it!

Truth 19 It’s All Relative!

A quarterback in the National Football League tells his team’s management that he won’t bereporting to training camp Although he’s under contract and scheduled to make $9.5 million thisseason, he says he’s not motivated to play this year He wants his team to either renegotiate hiscontract or trade him so he can get more money Neither this player nor his agent ever suggeststhat $9.5 million is inadequate to live on The argument is almost always couched in terms ofrelative rewards: “Other players who aren’t as good as I am [haven’t played as long; haven’t wonas many awards; don’t have as impressive statistics] are earning more.”

There is an impressive body of evidence that tells us that employees don’t look only atabsolute rewards They look at relative rewards They compare what inputs they bring to a job(in terms of experience, effort, education, and competence) with the outcomes they receive(salary levels, pay raises, recognition, and the like) Then they look around for other referencesto compare themselves against Those other references may be friends, relatives, neighbors,coworkers, colleagues in other organizations, or past jobs they have had Finally, they compare

their input/outcome ratio with the others and assess how equitably they think they’re beingtreated For our football player, he looks at his pay and his statistics; compares them with similarprofessional players at his position; and cries “foul” because he thinks he’s under-rewarded.An impressive body of evidence tells us that employees don’t look only at absolute rewards; theylook at relative rewards.

When people make these comparisons, they come to one of three conclusions: They’re either

being fairly treated, under-rewarded, or over-rewarded Fair treatment has a positive effect on

motivation Employees are likely to be motivated when they feel they are being equitablyrewarded for their contribution.

However, when people perceive themselves as being under-rewarded, they tend to get angry.To lessen this anger and restore equity, they are likely to engage in behavioral or perceptualadjustments For instance, they might take more paid sick leave, come in late to work or leaveearly, take longer breaks, put out less effort, goof-off on company time, ask for a raise, or evensteal from the company in an attempt to “get what’s mine.” They might also reassess either theirown or others’ inputs and outcomes, or change the person or persons with whom they’recomparing themselves At the extreme, under-rewarded employees can become angry enough toquit The degree of active behavior that under-rewarded employees will take is largely dependenton how equity-sensitive they are Some employees are very good at ignoring inequities oradjusting their perceptions to make them less bothersome But many professional and technicalemployees are quite equity-sensitive They’re likely to move quickly to correct any perceivedinequity.

People seem to have a great deal more tolerance of overpayment inequities than underpayment,or they’re better able to rationalize them.

When people perceive themselves as over-rewarded, they react with guilt And to relieve thatguilt, they might work harder, get more education, help out others, or work through a paidvacation Not surprisingly, the guilt rarely leads to requests for reductions in pay In fact, peopleseem to have a great deal more tolerance of overpayment inequities than underpayment, orthey’re better able to rationalize them.

Truth 20 Recognition Motivates (and It Costs Very Little)

A few years back, 1,500 employees in a variety of work settings were surveyed to find out whatthey considered to be the most powerful workplace motivator Their response? Recognition,recognition, and more recognition! Another study found that employees rated personal thanksfrom a manager for a job well done as the most motivating of a variety of incentives offered But,unfortunately, 58 percent of the workers in this study said their managers didn’t typically givesuch thanks.

In today’s highly competitive global economy, most organizations are under severe costpressures That makes recognition programs particularly attractive Why? In contrast to mostother motivators, recognizing an employee’s superior performance often costs little or no money.

Maybe that’s why a recent survey found that 80 percent of large companies have recognitionprograms Popular recognition actions, beyond verbal and written acknowledgments, includemerchandise, gift cards, and travel Recognition has been found to be especially relevant in themotivation of low-wage workers It costs little and helps to build employee self-esteem Forinstance, Fine Host Corp., a food service firm in Connecticut, gives out quality awards and postsworkers names in company buildings to recognize good work All Metro Health Care inLynbrook, New York, sponsors an award for home health care giver of the year and also givesemployees gifts, such as watches and blenders, for scoring high in quarterly training exercises.The most powerful workplace motivator is recognition, recognition, and more recognition!

We have a wealth of evidence that tells us that rewarding a behavior with recognitionimmediately following that behavior is likely to encourage its repetition How can managers usethis to help motivate employees? They can personally congratulate an employee in private for agood job They can send a handwritten note or an e-mail message acknowledging somethingpositive that the employee has done For employees with a strong need for social acceptance,managers can publicly recognize accomplishments And to enhance group cohesiveness andmotivation, managers can celebrate team successes They can use meetings to recognize thecontributions and achievements of successful work teams.

Rewarding a behavior with recognition immediately following that behavior is likely toencourage its repetition.

And keep in mind, little things can mean a lot Lee Memorial Health System, in Cape Coral,Florida, found this out when it gave customized key chains to each of its 5,000 employees as a

“thank you” when Modern Healthcare magazine named Lee as one of the top integrated health

care networks in the United States The key chains, designed especially for Lee Memorial, hadthe words “Valued Employee Since” displayed on the top of the brass emblem and theemployee’s year of hire added below They cost Lee only $4.50 per employee, but they proved tobe a powerful motivator Lee’s CEO said, “In all my years in health care administration, I’venever witnessed as much excitement as was created by giving the key chains to our staff Ireceived many thank you notes and e-mails expressing appreciation that we would take the timeto recognize each employee individually.

One caveat for any recognition effort: The recognition must be sincere People can seethrough insincerity So, for example, giving praise for a performance that is not out of theordinary is likely to have little motivating potential.

Truth 21 There’s More to High Employee PerformanceThan Just Motivation

Robin and Chris both graduated from college a couple of years ago with degrees in elementaryeducation They each took jobs as first grade teachers but in different school districts Robinimmediately confronted a number of obstacles on the job: a large class (38 students), a small anddingy classroom, and inadequate supplies Chris’s situation couldn’t have been more different.

He had only 15 students in his class, plus a teaching aid for 15 hours each week, a modern andwell-lighted room, a well-stocked supply cabinet, a computer for each student, and a highlysupportive principal Not surprisingly, at the end of the first school year, Chris had beenconsiderably more effective as a teacher than had Robin.

The preceding episode illustrates an obvious but often overlooked fact: Success on a job isfacilitated or hindered by the existence or absence of support resources No matter howmotivated an employee is, his or her performance is going to suffer if there isn’t a supportivework environment.

No matter how motivated an employee is, his or her performance is going to suffer if there isn’t asupportive work environment.

A popular way of thinking about employee performance is as a function of the interaction ofability and motivation; that is, performance = f(A × M) If either ability or motivation isinadequate, performance will be negatively affected This helps to explain, for instance, thehardworking athlete with modest abilities who consistently outperforms his or her more gifted,but lazy, rivals But an important piece of the performance puzzle is still missing We need toadd opportunity to our equation Performance = f(A × M × O) Even though an individual maybe willing and able, there may be obstacles that constrain performance.

When you attempt to assess why an employee may not be performing to the level that youbelieve he or she is capable of, take a look at the work environment to see if it’s supportive Doesthe employee have adequate tools, equipment, materials, and supplies? Does the employee havefavorable working conditions, helpful coworkers, supportive work rules and procedures,sufficient information to make job-related decisions, adequate time to do a good job, and thelike? If not, performance will suffer And don’t forget to minimize your employees’ disruptionsand distractions As we’ll discuss in Truth 39, “Watch Out for Digital Distractions,” today’sworkers are particularly vulnerable to a wide range of digital distractions—from tweets toFacebook to Internet videos.

When you attempt to assess why an employee may not be performing to the level that youbelieve he or she is capable of, take a look at the work environment to see if it’s supportive.Part III: The Truth About Leadership

Truth 22 Five Leadership Myths Debunked

With the possible exception of wrinkle removers and weight-loss programs, there may be nosubject with more nonsense masquerading as truth than the topic of leadership Let’s look at fivepopular leadership myths.

Myth #1 Leaders are born, not made A prominent myth is that leadership qualities are

inherent in the individual: A select group of people are born to lead, while most of us are born tofollow The evidence indicates that genetics does have some influence on leadership emergence.

Studies indicate that about 30 percent of leadership emergence can be accounted for by geneticfactors But that still leaves 70 percent to environmental influences So while a few traitsassociated with leadership are genetically determined, leadership can be learned We are notprisoners of our genetic makeup when it comes to whether or not we choose to seek leadershippositions.

Myth #2 Successful leaders have common traits The media are particularly guilty here of

looking for and promoting a common set of characteristics they think leaders have They identifyleaders such as Richard Branson, the late Steve Jobs, and Barack Obama in terms such

as charismatic, enthusiastic, decisive, and courageous What does the evidence reveal? A

number of traits seem to regularly appear that differentiate leaders from others They includeambition and energy, the desire to lead, self-confidence, and intelligence Overall, it appears thatthese traits are relatively powerful at explaining people’s perceptions of leadership However,you shouldn’t put much faith in the belief that successful leaders have common traits Why?

First, traits provide no guarantees Rather than being applicable across all situations, they appearto predict leadership in selective situations Second, the evidence is unclear in separating cause

from effect For example, are leaders confident, or does success as a leader build

self-confidence? And finally, traits do a better job at predicting the appearance of leadership than in

actually distinguishing between effective and ineffective leaders We can’t say that possessingtraits like ambition and self-confidence will predict effective leaders, merely that others arelikely to perceive them as such.

Myth #3 Men make better leaders than women Leadership positions have historically

been held by men As such, perceptions of leadership are often characterized in masculine termssuch as strong, aggressive, and assertive The evidence, however, indicates that men have noadvantage over women when it comes to leadership Since men historically held the greatmajority of leadership positions, a stereotype developed of leaders that had a masculine bias—task-oriented, directive, unemotional But as organizations have increasingly become structuredaround flexibility, teamwork, trust, and information sharing, the male stereotype of a directiveleader has become far less pervasive Organizations increasingly need fewer leaders who use acommand-and-control style and more who encourage participation, share power and information,nurture their followers, and lead through inclusion The most recent evidence suggests that,although the differences are small, if one gender does have an advantage, it’s probably women.

Myth #4 The MBA creates effective leaders Master’s degrees in business administration

are popular and expensive The U.S., alone, is turning out more than 155,000 MBAs every year.And the price of an MBA is not trivial The cost of an MBA at a top university now exceeds$100,000 For many fast-trackers, pursuing an MBA also means giving up a full-time job and,typically, an income of $150,000 or more during that two-year period Given these facts, you’dthink there would be substantial evidence that MBA programs are successful in creating leaders.The evidence says otherwise Little of what goes on in the conventional MBA program helpsbuild effective leadership skills These programs are great for learning about business, but theydon’t train leaders While they talk a lot about the importance of leadership, actual leadership islearned through experience and practice And these are areas where MBA programs come upshort As one noted authority put it, “the MBA trains the wrong people, in the wrong ways.”

Little of what goes on in the conventional MBA program helps build effective leadership skills.

Myth #5 Leadership always matters Given all the attention leadership receives—in

business schools, politics, the media—you’d think leadership was always necessary for a groupor organization (or country) to be successful It isn’t Data from numerous studies collectivelydemonstrate that, in many situations, whatever actions leaders take are irrelevant Why? Thereare individual, job, and organizational factors that limit the influence of a leader on his or hersubordinates Characteristics of subordinates such as their experience, training, or indifferencetoward organizational rewards can substitute for the effect of leaders Experience and training,for example, can replace the need for a leader’s support or ability to clarify work tasks Jobs thatare inherently unambiguous and routine or that are intrinsically satisfying may require littledirect attention from formal leaders And organizational characteristics such as explicitformalized goals, rigid rules and procedures, or cohesive work groups can minimize the role offormal leaders.

In many situations, whatever actions leaders take are irrelevant.

Truth 23 The Essence of Leadership Is Trust

When we trust others, we assume they’ll act honestly and truthfully, and be reliable andpredictable We also assume they won’t take advantage of our trust Trust is the essence ofleadership because it’s impossible to lead people who don’t trust you.

One author summarized the link between trust and leadership this way: “Part of the leader’stask has been, and continues to be, working with people to find and solve problems, but whetherleaders gain access to the knowledge and creative thinking they need to solve problems dependson how much people trust them Trust and trustworthiness modulate the leader’s access toknowledge and cooperation.”

It’s impossible to lead people who don’t trust you.

When employees trust a leader, they’re willing to be vulnerable to the leader’s actions—confident that their rights and interests won’t be abused People are unlikely to look up to orfollow someone whom they perceive as dishonest or who is likely to take advantage of them.Honesty, for instance, consistently ranks at the top of most people’s list of characteristics theyadmire in their leaders It’s an absolutely essential component of leadership.

Now, maybe more than any time in the past, managerial and leadership effectivenessdepends on the ability to gain the trust of followers Why? Because in times of change andinstability—which characterizes most workplaces today—people turn to personal relationshipsfor guidance, and the quality of these relationships is largely determined by the level of trust Inaddition, contemporary management practices such as empowerment and the use of work teamsrequire trust to be effective.

Honesty consistently ranks at the top of most people’s list of characteristics they admire in theirleaders.

So how do you, as a manager, get employees to trust you? It’s no simple task, but there areactions that research indicates help to build trusting relationships:

• Be open Mistrust comes as much from what people don’t know as from what they do know.

Keep people informed, make the criteria on how decisions are made overtly clear, explain therationale for your decisions, be candid about problems, and fully disclose relevant information.

• Be fair Before making decisions or taking actions, consider how others will perceive them in

terms of objectivity and fairness Give credit where it’s due, be objective and impartial inperformance appraisals, and pay attention to equity perceptions in reward distributions.

• Speak your feelings Managers who convey only hard facts come across as cold and distant If

you share your feelings, others will see you as real and human.

• Tell the truth Truth is an inherent part of integrity Once you have lied and been found out,

your ability to gain and hold trust is largely diminished People are generally more tolerant oflearning something they “don’t want to hear” than finding out that their manager lied to them.

• Show consistency People want predictability Mistrust comes from not knowing what to expect.

Let your central values and beliefs guide your actions This increases consistency and buildstrust.

• Fulfill your promises Trust requires that people believe that you are dependable So you need

to ensure that you keep your word and commitments.

• Maintain confidences People trust those who are discreet and upon whom they can rely They

need to feel assured that you will not discuss their confidences with others or betray thatconfidence If people perceive you as someone who leaks personal confidences or someone whocan’t be depended on, you won’t be perceived as trustworthy.

Truth 24 Experience Counts! Wrong!

Most of us accept the commonsense notion that experience is a valuable, even necessary,component for effective leadership Voters, for instance, tend to believe that the jobs of U.S.senator or state governor prepare individuals to be effective U.S presidents Similarly,organizations buy into this notion when they carefully screen outside candidates for seniormanagement positions on the basis of their experience For that matter, have you ever filled outan employment application that didn’t ask about previous experience or job history? In manyinstances, experience is used as the single most important factor in hiring and promotiondecisions Well, here’s the surprising news: The evidence doesn’t support that experience per secontributes to leadership effectiveness.

“Some inexperienced leaders have been outstandingly successful, while many experiencedleaders have been outstanding failures Among the most highly regarded former presidents areAbraham Lincoln and Harry Truman, who had very little previous leadership, while highlyexperienced Herbert Hoover and Franklin Pierce were among the least successful.” Studies of

military officers, research and development teams, shop supervisors, post office administrators,and school principals tell us that experienced managers tend to be no more effective than themanagers with little experience.

Have you ever filled out an employment application that didn’t ask about previous experience?

How could it be that experience wouldn’t make leaders more effective? Intuitively, it wouldseem that experience would provide learning opportunities that would translate into improvedon-the-job leadership skills The problems seem to be twofold First, quality of experience andtime in the job are not necessarily the same thing Second, there is variability between situationsthat influence the transferability of experience.

One flaw in the “experience counts” logic is the assumption that length of time on a job isactually a measure of experience This says nothing about the quality of experience The fact thatone person has 20 years’ experience while another has 2 years’ experience doesn’t necessarilymean that the former has had 10 times as many meaningful experiences Too often, 20 years ofexperience is nothing other than 1 year of experience repeated 20 times! In even the mostcomplex jobs, real learning typically ends after 2 or 3 years By then, almost all new and uniquesituations have been experienced So one problem with trying to link experience with leadershipeffectiveness is not paying attention to the quality and diversity of the experience.

The second problem is the situations in which experience is obtained are rarely comparableto new situations It’s critical to take into consideration the relevance of past experience to a newsituation Jobs differ, support resources differ, organizational cultures differ, followercharacteristics differ, and so on A primary reason that leadership experience isn’t stronglyrelated to leadership performance is undoubtedly due to variability of situations.

Too often, 20 years of experience is nothing other than 1 year of experience repeated 20 times!So what can we conclude? When selecting people for leadership positions, be careful not toplace too much emphasis on their experience Experience, per se, is not a very good predictor ofeffectiveness Just because a candidate has 10 years of previous leadership experience is noassurance that his or her experience will transfer to a new situation What is relevant is thequality of previous experience and the relevance of that experience to the new situation that theleader will face.

Truth 25 Effective Leaders Know How to Frame Issues

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech largely shaped the civil rights movement Hiswords created an image of what a country would be like where racial prejudice no longer existed;that is, King framed the civil rights movement in a way so others would see it the way he saw it.

Framing is a way to use language to manage meaning It involves the selection andhighlighting of one or more aspects of a subject while excluding others.

Framing is a way to use language to manage meaning.

Framing is analogous to what a photographer does The visual world that exists is essentiallyambiguous When a photographer aims her camera and focuses on a specific shot, she frames herphoto Others then see what she wanted them to see That is precisely what leaders do when theyframe an issue They choose which aspects or portion of the subject they want others to focus onand which portions they want to be excluded.

Political leaders live or die on their ability to frame problems and their opponent’s image Inan age of language wars, political victory often goes to those who win the battle overterminology For instance, in recent years, few topics have generated as much “framing” in

Washington as what defines a fair tax Democrats argue that it is one that is steeply progressive

and puts most of the weight on the wealthy Republicans counter that a fair tax is one thatspreads the tax burden more evenly and requires everyone to pay.

Political leaders live or die on their ability to frame problems and their opponent’s image.

In the complex and chaotic environment in which most leaders work, there is typicallyconsiderable maneuverability with respect to “the facts.” What is real is often what the leadersays is real.

Framing influences leadership effectiveness in numerous ways It largely shapes the decisionprocess in that frames determine the problems that need attention, the causes attributed to theproblems, and the eventual choices for solving the problems Framing also increases a leader’ssuccess in implementing goals and getting people’s agreement, because once the right frames arein place, the right behavior follows In addition, framing is critical to effective leadership in aglobal context because leaders must frame problems in common ways to prevent culturalmisunderstandings Finally, of course, framing is a vital element in visionary leadership Sharedvisions are achieved through common framing.

There are five language forms that can help you frame issues—metaphors, jargon, contrast,spin, and stories.

Metaphors help us understand one thing in terms of another They work well when the

standard of comparison is well understood and links logically to something else When amanufacturing executive describes his goal of having “our production process running like a fineSwiss watch,” he is using a metaphor to help his employees envision his ideal.

Organizational leaders are fond of using jargon This is language that is peculiar to a

particular profession, organization, or specific program It conveys accurate meaning only tothose who know the vernacular Microsoft employees know, for instance, that a “Blue Badge” isa permanent employee, while an “Orange Badge” designates a temp or independent contractor.

When leaders use the contrast technique, they illuminate a subject in terms of its opposite.Why? Because sometimes it’s easier to say what a subject is not more easily than what it is.

When an executive at a small pharmaceutical company was frustrated by his employees’ lack ofconcern with keeping costs down, he constantly chided them with the phrase, “we’re not Pfizer.”

The message he wanted to convey was that his company didn’t have the financial resources ofthe drug giant and they needed to reduce costs.

Presidential politics has created a new term: spin The objective of this technique is to cast

your subject in a positive or negative light Leaders who are good at “spinning” get others tointerpret their interests in positive terms and opposing interests in negative terms During the2012 U.S presidential campaign, Democratic leaders regularly used spin to describe RepublicanMitt Romney as an insensitive multimillionaire “who is out of touch with the middle class.”

Finally, leaders use stories to frame issues with examples that are larger than metaphors or

jargon When leaders at 3M tell the story of how Post-it Notes were discovered, they remindpeople of the importance the company places on creativity and serendipity in the innovationprocess.

Truth 26 You Get What You Expect

Let me tell you about 105 Israeli soldiers who were participating in a combat command course.The four instructors in this course were told that one-third of the specific incoming trainees hadhigh potential, one-third had normal potential, and the potential of the rest was unknown Inreality, the trainees were randomly assigned into these categories by researchers conducting thestudy In spite of the fact that the three groups should have performed about equally, since theywere randomly placed, those trainees who instructors were told had high potential scoredsignificantly higher on objective achievement tests, exhibited more positive attitudes, and heldtheir leaders in higher regard than did the others.

What happened here illustrates the power of expectations The instructors of the supposedlyhigh-potential trainees got better results from them because the instructors expected it! This sameresult has been well documented in studies of teachers’ behavior in classrooms What teachersexpect from students is what they generally get.

Think of expectations as sort of a self-fulfilling prophesy Expectations of how someone islikely to act cause that person to fulfill the expectation In business, this tells us that managersget the performance they expect Treat people as losers, and they won’t disappoint you Treatthem as capable individuals who can perform at the highest level, and they’ll do their best toprove you right Leaders who expect more get more!

Treat people as losers, and they won’t disappoint you.

Why do high employee expectations lead to higher performance? Because a leader’sexpectations influence the leader’s behavior toward employees Leaders allocate resources toemployees in proportion to their expectations They invest their best leadership in those theyexpect to perform best Employees who a leader expects to do well receive more emotionalsupport through nonverbal cues (like smiling and eye contact), more frequent and valuablefeedback, more challenging goals, better training, and more desirable assignments And leadersexhibit greater trust in these employees These behaviors, in turn, lead to employees who arebetter trained, with better skills and job knowledge In addition, a leader’s support helps build